 Welcome back everyone. So today is basically our last session on the last series of presentations and we're going to look at the future of global markets. Now to do we will look at three main topics together. So we'll look at the political economic and financial challenges that are facing the EU as a single market. Then we'll look at the effects of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations on the banking sector. Finally we'll look at some of the new trends in financial markets. So let's start with the very first topic on our agenda for today. So what are some of the political economic and financial challenges that are facing the EU as a single market? As we saw last week the UK is one of the countries that are departing and withdrawing from the EU. The UK is basically not the only country that is withdrawing from the EU. There is a threat that other states, other EU member states might be in line to also withdraw from the agreement from the single market. And because of this the withdrawal of particular countries and expulsion of other member states are one of the main challenges that are facing the EU as a single market. Another challenge that is faced by the EU is basically political instabilities and of course the rising and populistic movements in within the EU. And another major challenge that is faced by the EU is COVID-19's effects impact on the economy. And finally labour shortages is one of these strongest challenges that is facing the EU as a single market. Now if we want to move on from the EU and from what kind of challenges that the single market, the European single market may be experiencing within the next few years into understanding what are some of the challenges that are associated with applying the antimony laundering and know your customer regulations within the banking industry. Basically here that we would look at a few main themes. One of these main themes is the costs associated with implementing and with complying with the regulatory requirements. Of course whenever there is a regulatory requirement specifically when it comes to antimony laundering regulations and to know your customers and know your customer regulations there are always they may be costly on the banking sector, they may be costly on financial institutions and because of that applying these and implementing these and ensuring that they are that these institutions are basically in line with the updated regulations this may come at a hefty cost for the banking and for the financial institutions and so if they were to do they would have to invest heavily in ensuring that they comply fully with these with these regulations. Another hurdle or perhaps another effect is that looking at that applying or complying with KYC and AML regulations how it could impact the the banking sector is basically by looking at some of these measures and most and sometimes these measures would have a negative impact on those who come from a lower income background and so complying as from a financial institution perspective complying with these measures may restrict sometimes access to financial services by these segments of the society. Now the other impact or effect of AML and KYC regulations on the financial institutions in general and on the banking sector in particular is that because of its application and because of perhaps sometimes the hurdles in applying it and complying with these regulations financial institutions become more driven to innovate and to find different ways to streamline the process of complying with these regulations and at the same time to make it easier to comply with the regulations with the new regulation and so here this is one of the perhaps positive impacts on the banking sector that it helps them become more innovative in how they find ways to streamline and to comply with the new regulations. Now if we want to look at some of the trends in financial markets of course the main theme throughout the the past few years was looking at blockchain technology and at crypto assets and cryptocurrencies in general and for us for some of you who do not necessarily know what cryptocurrencies are basically these are digital currencies where all the transactions that are taking place they are verified on particular records and these records are maintained on a decentralized system this the decentralized system is basically the blockchain and these cryptocurrencies basically they have they are now more or less a speculative asset and because of their rise and their because of their rise and because of the mass adoption of investing in cryptocurrencies or in buying into cryptocurrencies this drove a number of central banks to think about issuing their own versions of cryptocurrencies of course these central bank backed cryptocurrencies are going to have a little different features from what cryptocurrencies what traditional cryptocurrencies that we know of bitcoin are and so one of the main things or one of the main trends that we'll be looking into is basically cryptocurrencies in general the other one is basically crypto assets as well and this is perhaps something that we can discuss together at the end of the presentation and see what are your thoughts about crypto assets another main trend that we're observing today is the rise in Islamic finance and post 2008 crisis when we started looking for more sustainable ways of doing finance this has led to the emergence of Islamic financing on an international platform and one of the basics of Islamic finances Islamic financing is basically the emphasis on sharing risks and at the same time the fact that the investments are based on real assets rather than speculative assets and another pillar associated to it is basically the promotion of social justice and financial inclusion to all members of the society and this has perhaps driven the finance the Islamic finance in general to hedge some of the negative impacts of the 2008 crisis and perhaps led to the increased interest in Islamic financing post the 2008 financial crisis with this in mind let us look into something I would like for you to do a little bit of research and look at a new trend an emerging trend in financial and the financial sector and what I would like for you to do is look at crypto assets in general and in particular examine non-fungible tokens do some research and find out if you think NFTs are able to disrupt financial markets or not if so how do you think they're able to disrupt the financial markets if not why do you think they are unable to disrupt the financial markets and do you think there is a point in time that these non-fungible tokens or these kinds of crypto assets are able to disrupt the financial markets thank you very much for attending and I wish you all the best of luck